High Roller Trike: A Big Wheel for Grown-Ups

For anyone still in denial about the sweeping return of 1970s style, here’s more evidence: A Colorado company called High Roller USA is mining the nostalgia of Generation X with an adult-size version of the classic Big Wheel tricycle.

The new ride, officially called the High Roller Mark I, is much like the cheap, plastic-wheeled kids’ trike known for a lack of traction that allowed it to skid and spin out with ease. But it is no longer cheap. The new, larger version costs $599.99.

To be fair I should mention it also has a steel frame and sturdier construction meant to carry grown-up loads. The original Big Wheel from toy-maker, Marx, many will recall, had a plastic body that kids in my neighborhood somehow managed to snap in half more than once. The old Marx Big Wheel is in the National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, N.Y.

While they may not talk openly about it, many people who were kids in the ’70s long for the days of racing up and down driveways on bikes, skateboards, Big Wheels and other contraptions like the Honda Kick n Go scooter. Numerous companies have responded with remakes of vintage products including a motorized take-off on Big Wheel rival the Green Machine, which showed up in the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog as the Lean Mean Green Machine.